Lake Huron

Lake
Huron is the third largest of the lakes by volume with 3,540 km3
(850 cubic miles) of water. Its average depth is 59 meters (195
feet) and its maximum depth is 229 meters (750 feet). The
Saginaw River basin is intensively farmed and contains the Flint and
Saginaw-Bay City metropolitan areas. Saginaw Bay, like Green Bay,
contains a very productive fishery.

The Lake Huron Binational Partnership effort focuses on
pollution reduction activities in areas of obvious importance, such
as Areas of Concern (AOCs), and directly pursues on-the-ground
activities to protect areas of high-quality habitat within the Lake
Huron basin. Existing stakeholder and agency forums
are used as much as possible to support the goals of the
Partnership. The Partnership maintains a close association with the
Remedial Action Plan efforts in AOCs, the Great Lakes Fishery
Commission’s Lake Huron and Lake Huron Technical Committees, the
State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC), and domestic
efforts that support the Partnership.

This 2008-2010 Action Plan provides updated information on
environmental trends, identifies priority issues, and promotes
management activities to be pursued over the next two-year cycle.
Consistent with an adaptive management approach, the Action Plan
tracks progress on issues identified in the previous cycle,
including contaminants in fish, changes in food web structure and
protection of critical habitat, and has been expanded to address
emerging issues, such as observed increases in nearshore algae and
diseases such as botulism and viral hemorrhaghic septicemia (VHS)

A precursor to the Lake Huron Binational Partnership, the Lake
Huron Initiative (the “Initiative”) was a U.S.-led effort to compile
existing data to assess the state of the Lake Huron basin and
identify priorities for future efforts. Led by the Michigan Office
of the Great Lakes and partially funded by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, the Initiative released the original Lake Huron
Initiative Action Plan in March 2000 and an update in 2002. The Lake
Huron Initiative Action Plan – 2002 was developed with extensive
agency involvement and began discussions of issues of importance to
Lake Huron, actions that need to be taken to protect and restore the
Lake Huron ecosystem, and development of partnerships to begin
undertaking efforts that could not be accomplished by individual
agencies alone.